It'll All Come Out In the Wash
by mtwin
Summary: Some speculation on the yet to be revealed laundry room and its uses for the Winchesters.


**Disclaimer: All characters and settings are not owned by me. Title comes from Miranda Lambert song.  
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**Authors note: I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets excited when we see a new room at the bunker. (The Dean Cave was a treat) But there's one room we haven't seen yet, so I thought I would share some speculation on the laundry room and it's uses for the Winchesters.******  
This is a short, plotless fic. My first one too, so apologies in advance for any errors. Enjoy!  
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After the bedrooms and bathrooms, after the kitchen and library, after a dozen other rooms, they finally turned their attention to the laundry room. It's not that they were reluctant to get started on it. It's just that it wasn't really a priority when they first settled into the bunker. After all, having a laundry room was neither a necessity nor an idealized comfort.

On the road, stopping to do laundry is like stopping for gas. But with a home base, a _home_, driving out to the laundromat seems like more of a chore. And they don't exactly want to be seen handling bloody shirts or jackets that smell like gunpowder and smoke in an area they're planning on staying in for the foreseeable future. It wouldn't exactly help them keep a low profile. And now they can fill up dressers with clothes because they don't need to be emptied the next day, and they have bedsheets and towels they are responsible for cleaning. (Though whether the staff at the motels they stayed in cleaned the sheets either was up for debate)

So maybe it was a little necessary.

The laundry room walls and floor were in the same style as the rest of the bunker, but with the handy addition of two drains built into the floor. Like the kitchen, it was made to accommodate the needs of however many people might be staying in the bunker at a given time. There were two deep, basin-like sinks with a drying rack beside them on one wall, as well as some large laundry hampers on wheels. Another wall was shared between cabinets and shelves lined with wire baskets. And opposite the door sat the dusty washer and dryer, with a sturdy table in the center of the room for sorting and folding. The machines were probably the newest model when they had been installed, but now they were well over 50 years old. The boys had a heck of a time figuring out if the pipes and wires connected to the antiquated equipment could handle a more modern appliance. They got a secondhand washer and dryer that were about as beat up and dingy as the clothes they washed in them, but also just as functional. One of the dials on the washer had to be relabeled with Sam's neat script because the original settings had worn off and, at some point, the dryer acquired a sigil on its side after Dean swore it ate every left sock he owned.

They used the storage in the laundry room like a linen closet. Extra towels and a simple sewing kit with spare buttons were stored in the cabinets. They put their stash of extra blankets (the ones not kept in the Impala's trunk) in some of the wire baskets, and white sheets for emergency bandages (and hunter funerals) in some others. The detergent (it never really mattered what kind, as long as it got out tough stains) just stayed out by the washing machine. Extra jugs were kept out in the open, under the table, so Sam and Dean would know when they were running low. Stain remover was always kept stocked as well. Dean ironically bought fabric softener when Sam teased him about his beloved memory foam mattress being paired with stiff sheets, but a replacement bottle always ended up in the cart when they ran out. Their sorting was probably a bit different than the average person's; they didn't do lights, darks, delicates. It was more like FED clothes, extra gory, and everything else. Sometimes, _maybe_, lights and darks got washed separately. Laundry duty would ideally have been based on an organized and fair schedule, but it quickly devolved due to lost bets, lost card games, favors, forgetfulness, and long stretches of time away from the bunker.

In the end, they used the room more than they thought they would. It was kinda nice to be able to freshen up clothes before they became unfit for human noses. And when they got back from a particularly gory hunt, they could just head straight to the laundry room to change out of their clothes and avoid getting the mess in their own rooms. Even though neither one of them enjoyed handling the dirty clothes, if it was a slow night, one of them would usually go fold while the other cooked in the kitchen. Dean's dead guy robe was one of the first things Sam threw in to their 'new' washer. He wasn't about to take Dean's word for it that it had been washed properly. When Sam was sick from the Trials, Dean would throw a blanket in the dryer for a few minutes to get it toasty before draping it around his brother. Partly out of guilt and partly out of necessity, Dean took over all laundry duty (and any other chores he could think of) while Sam's shoulder healed up. Sam washed every scrap of fabric in his room twice after Lucifer finally left the bunker. Dean usually washed his socks in the sink after the dryer incident, even after Sam _helpfully_ replaced all the ones that 'disappeared' with novelty designed ones that said stuff like "SEND NOODS" with noodles all over it. When the apocalypse refugees were staying with them, the machines were constantly running. In the aftermath of Michael massacring the bunker, they used every white sheet they had for the mass funeral. After a run, Sam would throw his sweaty clothes in the large sink to wash later. Dean would complain about them every time, but they got rinsed and hung up even when Sam forgot about them.

They didn't hang out together in the laundry room like they had to at laundromats, they had the whole bunker to sit in after all, but sometimes, if one of them was sorting and folding, the other would join them at the table and lend a hand. If a few socks got tossed around as projectiles... well it's not like they expected to find the matching one anyways.

End

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**I never planned on writing (I consider myself more of a consumer than a creator), but I just couldn't get this idea out of my head. I hope you enjoyed it!**


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